Holy Fool

Hermeneutic (Noun) a method or theory of interpretation.

Within western culture there is a tension when it comes to mystery.  We have a growing need to invoke the existence of the mysterious even as our technological advances, science, and entertainment seek to remove all of the veils that make it possible.  There is an intense fascination with the unexplained and unknowable forces at work in our world. We are focused on exposing the fleeting specters just outside our spectrum of understanding.  We open ourselves to scientific discovery and advance as we simultaneously attempt to hold onto faith systems that are thousands of years old.  For many this is a dichotomy, an either/or scenario in which you can’t walk the fence.  There are however a growing number of people for which the mixture of faith and discovery do not create grey, but instead open up the eyes to a broad spectrum of beautiful and vibrant new colors.

I am one of these individuals that attempts to hold in tension both faith and science, knowing that by betraying a belief in the false dichotomy of either/or I can in essence adhere to each even more honestly and faithfully than I could if I took one and rejected the other.  It is with this tension in play that I understand and interpret what I see.  Whether it is a passage of the Bible, or scientific discovery I do not see either through an unfiltered lens.  In order to really grow, I must be honest with myself and with you that my bias leads me to understand science in light of my faith, and conversely my faith in light of science.  One does not cancel the other out, rather they work together to provide a level of understanding and detail that would be completely missed were I to stridently hold to an either/or logic.

I must also admit that on top of the perspectives of faith and scientific understanding there are a myriad of other filters and lens’ added to my hermeneutic which greatly affect it’s interpretation.  I have been educated in a western and Platonic/Aristotelian system of education and thought.  I am a citizen of what is arguably the most wealthy nation that has ever existed.  I am white, which means I inherently enjoy social and financial privileges and benefits.  I do not know of personal poverty, or what it is like not to know where my next meal will come from.  These are just a few of a very long list of factors that shape my worldview, my understanding, and ultimately how and why it is that I interpret something a particular way.  This is my personal hermeneutic.  What is yours?  What factors in your background shape you?

The question I am asking you (and myself) is not what do you believe, which is a question that is inevitably reductionistic and leads to all kinds of naive assumptions on both of our ends.  Rather, and more precisely, I want to ask you; how is it that you believe what you believe?

Only when we begin to explore how it is that we believe what we believe can we successfully deconstruct our irrational beliefs and set them aside; and then go about the good work of building a hermeneutic based on a foundation grounded in a core understanding of our being.

There seems to be some hub-bub going on about Elton John's comment that he believes Jesus was a "compassionate, super-intelligent gay man."  Some are even calling it blasphemous.  I think we are, to borrow from McLaren/Campolo, embarking on an adventure in missing the point when we so easily condemn Elton's statement.  What some are labeling an 'attention grab' I guess I just see as a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.

It is really quite easy to get all up in arms because someone thinks Jesus may have been gay.  But there are a few things to think of here:

Being gay does not equate to sinfulness in and of itself.  Gay is used as a pejorative term in many Christian circles in a way which couples orientation and practice in a destructive way.  I say it is destructive in that it connotes a special level of disdain and degradation for those that have engaged in homosexual acts. If they were to do the same acts with the opposite sex, while still sin (outside of marriage), they do not receive any extra condemnation from 'Christian' society.  As Christians we do not point a finger and speak under our breath, "you know that guy is a heterosexual right?"  There are many and varied reason why a persons orientation may differ from heterosexual that have nothing to do with the choice of the individual.

It is statistical truth however that most people are heterosexual.  Heterosexuality also has the weight of being the only way in which humans can 'go forth and multiply'.  Those in mind it would seem that nature in general would point us towards a heterosexual pre-disposition in the majority of cases and we have no evidence that Jesus was otherwise.  It makes anthropological sense then that Jesus was indeed heterosexual.  Of the temptations Jesus faced the Bible does not speak to any matters of lust or sexual indecency that Jesus may have faced directly, although we do have assurance that he was tested in all the ways that we are as humans, the Bible simply just doesn't say 'how' he was tempted.  The Hellenistic/pagan culture of that era, especially in the areas outlying the reach of Judaism, were libertine in nature and sexual temptations were not limited to heterosexual ones.

The main issues I take task with in Elton's assertion is not one of sexual correctness, but one of hermeneutic focus.  How does he interpret the story of Jesus to make the assumption that he was gay?  Elton has fallen prey to the interpretive error of egocentrism.  In How to Read the Bible for All it's Worth Fee and Stuart make this observation:

"That is, most of us assume as we read that we also understand what we read.  We also tend to think that our understanding is the same thing as the Holy Spirit's or human author's intent.  However, we invariably bring to the text all that we are, with all of our experiences, culture, and prior understandings of words and ideas.  Sometimes what we bring to the text, unintentionally to be sure, leads us astray, or else causes us to read all kinds of foreign ideas into the text."

It seems logical that Elton is simply bringing into his understanding of Christ an uneducated and perhaps egocentric world-view in which his interpretation is correct.  This is no different than the many challenges we face in the church today whether it is unholy patriotism, prosperity gospel, name it and claim it, fierce judgmentalism, or churches that pray for the death of our president.

Everyone has a pet sin that they love to call out, I like calling out laziness in others because I struggle with it myself at times.  It's really easy for me to read my pre-judgments into scripture.

What Elton faces is the same thing we all face in interpreting scripture, are we going to let the text inform our life and practice and let the text be the text, or are we going to continually ram the text into our mold of choice to fit our comfort level?  I really wish parts of the Old-Testament weren't in there at times, all the violence is quite frankly a bit embarrassing, but I have to let the text be the text and learn from it and let it shape me. Not the other way around.